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Elevance, an Indianapolis-based insurance company, also cut its 2025 earnings guidance in July after increased healthcare utilization surged costs in government-backed programs, including both ACA markets and Medicare advantage. Centene also pulled its guidance for investors, seeing market difficulty on the horizon.
The four companies did not respond to email requests for comment from Just the News.
"It is a form of corruption, it is a form of corporate welfare to very profitable insurance companies, and it has to stop," Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, told the Just the News, No Noise TV show on Monday.
"More importantly, it doesn't bring health care costs down. It may make it more affordable for one person, but it doesn't have any incentive for the insurance companies to bring down health care costs. So all you're doing is…that you're continuing ratcheting up premiums, because the insurance companies are getting directly subsidized by the taxpayers," she continued.
Unused insurance means more profit in insurance company coffers
The Obamacare insurance exchanges also have another major flaw that fuels corporate profits. About a third of all subsidized Obamacare health plans go unused by the insured, meaning these plans translate into pure profits for the health insurance companies completely at the expense of the American taxpayer.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that enhanced the Obamacare subsidies broadly as an emergency measure, which opened the door for such over-coverage. It also raised the qualifying income cap for the tax credits to 400% of the poverty level or $128,000 for a family of four.
“These are not about the ACA subsidies, like the original Obamacare subsidies don't expire,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “This is about the COVID-era tax credits that layer on top of that, and the tax credits don't go to Americans, they go directly to insurance companies.
He said “many people can get free policies through these pancaking layered tax credits” and some “people don’t even realize they’re double covered” because of deceptive sales tactics.
“40% of these policies have never had a single claim applied to them. It's amazing […] It shows that these are phantom policies, people aren't using them, they aren't making Americans healthier. Instead, they are just checks written to the insurance companies,” Johnson said.
This expansion “often [resulted] in federal taxpayers footing the bill for all, or nearly all, premium costs for silver and bronze plans, as well as gold plans,” the Paragon Institute concluded. Bronze, Silver, and Gold describe increasing levels of insurance plans that decrease deductible cost and lower cost sharing as you climb the rungs.
35% of enrollees never file a claim
“Large insurers benefit greatly from phantom enrollment, as they collect billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to cover individuals who cost them nothing,” wrote Niklas Kleinworth, Liam Sigaud, and John Graham in a Paragon Health Institute policy brief last month.
The data show that nearly 12 million enrollees, about 35% of all people enrolled in the Obamacare exchange, are actually zero-claim enrollees. This means that their health coverage did not translate into actual health care.
Paragon found that the average profile of these enrollees is someone who is healthy and likely does not need full coverage for care. Additionally, the researchers identified worrying data that many were enrolled in full coverage without their knowledge, raising fraud concerns and leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab.
But what caused this pattern of perverse incentives? The expanded Obamacare subsidies that are now at risk due to the government shutdown, the researchers say.
“Our analysis shows that these enrollees are not just healthy enrollees with no need for care. They are part of a larger story about how Biden COVID credits are driving perverse incentives,” the Paragon authors wrote.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/obamacare-secret-heart-shutdown-insurers-got-rich-taxpayer-expense